PB029: Develop a Plan to Grow Your Readership [Day 29 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog]

How to Develop a Plan to Grow Your Readership

Today’s episode is about developing a plan to drive new readers to your blog to grow your readership. Many bloggers I talk to think that if they write great content, readers will just show up. This simply isn’t the case. Almost every successful blogger I’ve met has spent significant time on proactive activities that will grow their readership.

Whoa!! This may be the hardest part. You’re right about one thing: it’s a lot to think about. Decided to mull over the tips, play the podcast again, mull over the tips, repeat. I’m thinking also, that maybe I should break it all down into small pieces and build slowly.

Thanks for the whole series, but especially this episode, reminding me to reach out BUT also keep building content. One of my weaknesses I have to be careful of on my blogs can be an attraction of doing ‘busywork’ and working on research or refining personas, instead of the scary part of writing. This episode was such good kick in the butt for me, I listened to it twice! Much appreciated.

Serina Huang

I need to listen to the podcast again and write some answers! I was struck a little bit about an application to blogging from a Google Innovation seminar I attended last week – they encourage staff to think 10x rather than 10%. A lot for me to implement in today’s podcast but I want to share that already I have grown my readership so much this month that it is already more than all of last year combined. Thank you for the useful and pragmatic tips.

This is great information but it is going to need a lot of work and focus and I will be returning here again and again. I won’t be able to start until next week – a son is getting married and that takes priority. For all the wonderful people I’ve met through this challenge I want to say – It has been a genuine pleasure.

Turns out, the image of the lonely blogger sitting in front of a screen and typing away is nothing but a fantasy. Social networking and promotion are two huge parts of building a successful blog, but perhaps I am not alone in thinking that this is a difficult thing to do for most bloggers. When I started my blog, barely 6 months ago, I was just content to write posts and didn’t bother to promote them. Now, I want to find people to read my posts, so I have to get over my introverted self and start getting off my blog and doing something to promote it. Over the course of this challenge, I have learned a ton of things that have helped me improve my blog, but there’s no point if I don’t have readers. I believe this will be difficult, but I am sure I can find a way to rise to the challenge. Finally, I am grateful for having met so many wonderful fellow bloggers and I hope we will not lose touch!

Thanks Darren for this amazing post. Lot’s to think about and you really get to the core of identifying what needs to happen to be successful. Our blog at authenticfoodquest.com is just one month old, and while we are focused on content, we also want the rewards of people reading our posts. We will listen to this over and over again. Great stuff here, thank you!

I could disappear into a hole marked chatting on forums here. Gardening being a very popular topic on forums and I don contribute to a couple on a regular basis but these are not really where the people who BUY my design services come. I see tow things. 1) I need to find where the garden design buyers play on Social Media and 2) develop some ‘products’ for the DIY gardeners stream
I am still having some trouble ‘defining’ my avatar clients, atm it’s a hugely broad spectrum of people. Shirley has a good point about doing it methodically and building slowly.

1. I am being more focused in what I share on FB, and engaging there more often.
2. I am going back and updating old blog posts to be sharable for this pinterest day and age, and to improve SEO. I picked my most popular subject and about halfway through that, and from there I’ll pick my next most popular subject. I’m also finding several landing pages I can create from this.
3. I’m networking with two different groups of Mom bloggers and we are working together to improve each other.
4. I’m switching up my theme to a more adaptable one.

Juan Feju

Hai Darren, I wish you can make a podcast about how a general blog (a blog with many different topics) could succeed, what are the strategise? And I wish you can show some study case (if any). Because most of your podcast suits a niche blog and I wonder how to apply that on my blog. Thank you.